


What You Cannot Face

by reallifeskywalker (horribletestsubject)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Amnesia, Anakin has zero coping skills, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So he flashburns his life away, but his past will catch up to him regardless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28835844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horribletestsubject/pseuds/reallifeskywalker
Summary: Star-Eyes, the crew had taken to calling you, because of your golden eyes that sometimes seemed to glow in the dim lighting. And they might as well call you that— for all you know, it’s your real name.You don’t remember anything from before you woke up on this very transport, in its med-bay, surrounded by a bewildered and concerned group of spacers. No name, no age, no ID tags, not even a hint as to who you might have been or what you might have done before.It’s been a few years since you’d given up trying to remember entirely. If somehow you find something, then that’s that. But for now, you’re just Star-Eyes, pilot of the Distant Star. And you’re perfectly alright with that. You get to tinker, you get to fly, sometimes even run an Imperial blockade. And you’re surrounded by a crew that treats you like a part of their family.There’s no reason for you to want anything more. Nothing but the haunting void in your mind that wonders what might have happened, what sort of life you led before this.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. Prologue: Fire and Ice

An incessant hum is the first thing you notice. You don’t think much of it at first. Well, you don’t think much at all at first. You simply become aware of it. Your mind, your thoughts, register that it’s there. Gradually, your waking mind places the sound— the hum of working machinery. Rhythmic beeping punctuates it occasionally. You begin to think more deeply— you recognise the sound as both annoying and comforting. What that means, you’re not sure.

There’s the feeling of cold metal beneath the fingertips of your left hand. And pressure on your right, but you can’t feel the metal itself like you can with your left. It’s ridged slightly, and you can feel bits of dust and dirt caught in the ridges. You move your fingers back and forth. They obey your brain’s command. It’s a lot easier than you thought it would be. 

An acrid scent reaches your nose. This one you can’t identify, not precisely. But you know it’s not the first time you smelled it. You can feel your heart rate increase. It makes you feel... anxious. Agitated, a bit. The scent mingles with that of metal, and dozens of others that your head is still too muddled to sort out. 

Your mouth is dry. Your lips feel parched, and sting, and taste of blood. You realise you have teeth. You realise that your teeth are caught around your lower lip. You release the bite, and it begins throbbing, and the taste of blood grows stronger. You think you can feel a drop of blood slide down your chin, but you’re not sure. 

Your skin feels cold and warm simultaneously. The air is thick and dry and warm, and yet its movement makes places on your face cold.

Slowly your lashes flutter open. Your eyes are assaulted by light, and nothing else. You close them again. You wait. You open them, even more slowly this time. 

It still hurts, but much less than it did before. 

You can see... shapes. Indistinct at first, but gradually becoming more clear. A... table, it looks like, you’re lying next to it. On the floor? That’s certainly what it seems like. There are others too it seems. Other people, on the floor with you. Maybe still asleep?

Or...

You sit up. Your body aches,throbs, every inch of it feels as if you’re being stabbed by a thousand tiny blades. Your chest most of all. It aches and catches and twists and makes a lump form in your throat. You want to scream. So you do. You cry out— your voice pierces the gentle sounds of the machinery like a blade, rending it into sounds before the cry and sounds after it. 

You can breathe easier after, and after you choke out a few sobs. Your throat aches from the scream. The room around you vibrates. 

The others in the room aren’t asleep. That much you can tell. Their bodies are covered in burnt-edged wounds, and they are very much dead. 

You feel ill, you get to your feet quickly. Heavy, long robe falls from your shoulders as you turn to run, picking and stumbling your way over the bodies to the opening at the other side of the room. You push yourself as fast as you can without tripping, your breathing coming fast and hard and difficult. It feels like something is chasing you. Like it’s hot on your heels and ready to devour you. Like you should run— run as far and as fast as you can. 

You pass a viewport as you go, you see a dull orange glow of lava and a black-rock landscape. 

You don’t know where you are. You don’t know how you got here. You don’t know what you’re doing here. 

But you know you have to leave. You have to run. So you do. 

You run down the halls, through whatever doors you can find. You don’t stop, you push ahead even though you’re getting more exhausted by the second. The fear grips you and drives you forward. Tears sting your face. 

Finally you reach a large door that leads to an open area, where you can see a variety of machines lined up— starships and transports of various sorts. You select one without thinking, rushing toward one of the smaller craft and practically throwing yourself into the pilot’s seat.

There’s a vibration against your wrist— a comlink, someone is contacting you. A feeling of sickening dread washes over you. You cannot answer that call. Fingers detach the device and fling it off into the hangar. Then, your hands fly to the ship’s controls. It’s pure instinct as you flip switches— you can’t remember flying but you feel like you know how. The repulsors fire up, the craft lifts from the ground. 

You don’t know where you’re going. You just punches in coordinates and go. 

Another wave of sickness overtakes you and you double over. Your vision blurs, head throbbing, stomach turning as the stars streak out infinitely and the ship jolts into hyperspace. Your body falls sideways out of its seat, clattering to the floor as everything goes dark. 

—

When Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padmé Amidala arrive on Mustafar, there is no sign of life in the complex. R2-D2 hurries aboard their ship, but cannot tell them what has happened, and Anakin’s starfighter sits vacant on the landing pad. 

Obi-Wan enters the complex, fingers on the hilt of his lightsaber, ready for whatever, or whoever, might greet him. 

But no-one does. All that he finds are the bodies of the murdered Separatist leaders, and Anakin’s lightsaber and outer robe, lying discarded on the floor of the main chamber. 


	2. Deep Within

The Gozanti-class light cruiser  _ Distant Star _ has been crawling through space sub-light for nearly four weeks now. You have been keeping count, as you sit nearly endlessly in the cockpit, often doing little more than monitoring various levels, making sure that there aren’t any indicators of problems in the ship’s systems. There isn’t much actual flying to do— just an endless, dull slough through the stars. 

You’d have much preferred to travel through hyperspace, of course— the destination is just a few systems over, it would be a very short flight, maybe a few hours at most. But their instructions were to travel sub-light, so travel sub-light you did. 

After all, one didn’t question the Empire’s requests. 

That was one of the first things you’d learned after joining the crew of the  _ Distant Star _ . Usually, your clients were smaller businessmen and entrepreneurs, but occasionally you’d transport something for the empire. You rarely, if ever, know what’s in the crates. Less liability that way. You’re not even sure if the captain knows.

Your legs ache, and, with autopilot engaged, you get up from your seat. Should be alright for a little while, besides, the alarms will go off if anything happens. Which is unlikely. This stretch of space is pretty quiet. And you need to stretch your legs anyway or you might go as crazy as some of the rest of the crew. 

You stand up straight, raising your arms above your head. Shoulders pop and crack as tightly-wound muscles relax. Instantly, there’s some relief to the ache and pain you’d all but forgotten about. You release a sigh, as your fingers— five flesh and bone, five metallic— brush against the ceiling of the cockpit. You step outside, making a round of the freighter’s main deck. 

Some of your crew-mates are milling around in the lounge as you pass. They greet you, and you smile and wave in return. 

You poke your head into the cargo bay. “Everything stable?” You ask, and the technician, a twi’lek named Ryyni, swivels her chair around. 

“Yep, we’ve been a-okay since that scare last week,” Ryyni tries to sound chipper but she’s clearly exhausted. You can tell that easily. And you’re sure you don’t look much better (though you somehow seem to look like you haven’t slept in weeks regardless of how you’re actually feeling). This trip has stretched the whole crew thin. 

“Star-Eyes!” the voice calling out causes you to turn away from Ryyni to see the captain, Zirca Hrill, a tall and broad-shouldered Mirialan with short, spiked dark hair, waving a hand in your direction. 

You wave back as she approaches. “Captain,” you reply, a little dip of your chin acknowledging her. 

“I see you finally took my advice. You’d been sitting in that chair way too long. Now you just need to get some sleep,” she shakes her head as she reaches you, a gloved hand resting on your shoulder. 

You shake your head, a smile on your lips. “I’m alright. I don’t sleep much anyway.” 

“Nonsense. I’ve been captaining this ship for probably as long as you’ve been alive, and I know pilots like to talk big, but they’re just as much ordinary beings as the rest of us. I can take the controls for now, we’ll need you for the landing.”

You want to protest again, but you know better than to argue with Zirca. Once she has her mind set on something, there’s no changing it. And admittedly, you are pretty tired. Maybe tired enough so that you can actually get some sleep this time. So you nod. “Alright, Captain. I’ll try to get some rest. Wake me if anything exciting happens.”

“No trying, Star-Eyes, just doing,” she smirks. “And I’m pretty sure you’d be up and at ‘em before the rest of us even knew something was going on with those crazy instincts of yours.” 

You chuckle a little— though there’s an uncomfortable prickle in the back of your mind as you head back to the bunks. You tap the door controls and slip into your room. It’s small— a bed and a dresser and a chair, but there’s enough room on the floor that it doesn’t feel too claustrophobic. 

You catch a glimpse of your reflection in the small viewport next to your bed. Long, coppery hair tied back in a braid, a few strands of grey at your temples, out of place compared to your youthful features. Wisps of hair are falling out of the braid and framing your face, making you look either windswept or like you just woke up far, far too early in the morning. You like to think it’s the first, but know it’s the second. Tan skin always a little sickly-looking, dusted with a galaxy of freckles over your nose and cheeks. The perpetual dark circles around your eyes, that never seem to go away no matter how much you sleep. The pale scar running from your right brow down over your cheekbone. You wonder how you got it. And of course, your eyes— the reason for your name. Golden-yellow, sometimes even seeming to glow a little in the dim lighting. Star-Eyes, the crew had taken to calling you, because of them. And they might as well call you that— for all you know, it’s your real name. 

You don’t remember anything from before you woke up on this very transport, in its med-bay, surrounded by a group of bewildered and concerned spacers. No name, no age, no ID tags, not even a hint as to who you might have been or what you might have done before. Apparently you’d been found floating in space, unconscious in a small shuttle, in a relatively untraveled area. Zirca had wanted to question you— after all, that’s at least a little suspicious— but you hadn’t been any help at the time.

It had been a few weeks until you were able to speak at all, until the near-unspeakable pain flaring through your body at all times stopped crippling you. It’s better now, but you still have flare-ups, even though the medical screenings show nothing out of the ordinary. 

At first, you were just another crew-mate, staying on the _ Distant Star _ because you just didn’t have anywhere else to go. And because, though you were loathe to admit it, you were basically helpless and oblivious as to how to survive in the tumultuous galaxy. And because quite a few of the crew members, Zirca included, might as well have adopted you. 

But after an incident where the hyperdrive failed and sent the freighter tumbling into an asteroid field, you made yourself absolutely indispensable. The current pilot had been injured badly when the controls blew, and you’d been near the cockpit. It was as if instinct kicked in, and you took the controls, guiding the barely-in-control ship through the field, without more than a few slight scratches, when everyone, Zirca included, was sure that you were all goners. Since then, you’d been the crew’s pilot, the former pilot more than happy to relinquish the controls after that incident.

So you’d learned a little about yourself— you learned that you loved to fly. And, based on how well you knew your controls, you figured you’d probably been a pilot before you lost your memories. 

While repairing the hyperdrive after you’d gotten the ship safely to a nearby port, you learned that you weren’t a bad mechanic either. 

But you’ve learned very little since then. And every time you’ve tried to remember anything from before, you get a splitting headache and the pain comes flooding back through your body. Sometimes you pass out, catching what might be a face, what might be a scene lost in the deep recesses of your mind before darkness claims you and you lose sight of it again.

It’s been a few years since you’d given up trying to remember entirely. If somehow you find something, then that’s that. But for now, you’re just Star-Eyes, pilot of the  _ Distant Star. _ And you’re perfectly happy with that. You get to tinker, you get to fly, sometimes even run an Imperial blockade. And you’re surrounded by a crew that treats you like a part of their family. 

There’s no reason for you to want anything more. Nothing but the haunting void in your mind that wonders what might have happened to you, what sort of life you led before this. 

And usually you’re busy enough to not think about it, but these long hauls really have a way of bringing out the worst in people. 

You practically toss yourself up into your bunk and lie on your back. Exhausted, and yet sleep evades you. You’ve always had trouble sleeping. It seems like, whenever you need it the most, your mind is haunted by something you can’t quite see. 

You push the thoughts down, roll over onto your stomach, and pull your pillow over your head. 

Eventually, sleep comes. You don’t dream— which isn’t something you mind, because when you do dream it’s always darkness and fire and screaming and blood. Makes you wonder if you ever even want to know about your life before this ship and its crew. 

Something stirs within you, before you wake— anticipation, a sense of familiarity, a few flashes of what seem like memories you haven’t experienced yet. 

You jolt upright. Something is coming. Golden eyes drift toward the viewport. The stars twinkle back quietly from the darkness, calm and peaceful. Nothing. And yet, that sense of impending doom remains. You wait, poised by the viewport, as anticipation builds and builds, and then... 

There’s no sound. There’s no alarm. But something tells you that you need to get to the cargo bay right now. 

You reach out and grab your vibroblade from its hook on the wall. You have your blaster at your waist, but you prefer melee fighting if it comes to it— and with the dread in the pit of your stomach, you wonder if it might. 


End file.
